This past weekend, I embarked on a complex solution to a simple problem. The problem: I can not reach my light switch from my bed at night!! Naturally, I could have gotten a long cord and ran it near my pillow. But, wires are very 1990's and I could imagine all kinds of dangers with electrical wires on my pillow.

So, I bought a Belkin Wemo light switch. I prefer this over smart light bulbs because if you turn off a smart light bulb, you have to remember not to try to use the light switch to turn it back on. A smart switch is more idiot proof.

My plan was simple...I want to tell my lights to go off from the comfort of my bed, completely hands free, by simply saying "Goodnight". Thanks to the Internet of Things, this is finally possible without soldering, writing code, or building robots!

Step 1) Install Wemo light switch. This was very basic and went smoothly. Working with real electricity is dangerous, so I did not take chances with the circuit breaker! You can see the 'before' picture below showing the wiring. This was the least elegant step in the process since it required real tools, but it really only required connecting 3 wires.

Step 2) Configure Wemo and app. This was brain dead simple....install app from the Google Play store, connect to the Wemo wifi network to configure, connect back to normal Wifi. It took under a minute.

Step 3) Add voice control. This was trickier. I started with an application for Android called Tasker. This is a great app that is confusing to use because it is so powerful. You use it to create events and actions that automate your phone. Once I figured it out, it took very few steps to set it up. I installed a plugin for Tasker called Autovoice that does the real magic. It lets you add custom Google Now commands. I added one so I can just say "Ok Google", then "Goodnight". When I say that, it tells Tasker to send an SMS to a service called IFTTT. (IFTTT gives you a phone number to send SMS's to)

Step 4) IFTTT is awesome and simple. It provides a graphical way to create automation scripts that run in the cloud. It literally means If This Then That and it is very easy to use. IFTTT has lots of 'trigger events' and 'actions' already built in. I only had to activate the Wemo trigger so it can control my Wemo device. I then made a simple recipe that says If "Get SMS from my phone" Then "toggle Wemo switch". This also took less than a minute.

Summary:

"Ok Google" activates Google Now on my phone. When I say "Goodnight", Autovoice hears it and it tells Tasker to send an SMS to IFTTT. IFTTT sees the SMS, and then sends a message to the Wemo Light Switch in my house to turn on or off. This all takes about 3 seconds.

So, now I can just say "Ok Google...Goodnight" from anywhere on the planet that has internet access and my lights will turn on or off!!!!

As covered by Techcrunch this week, a company called Squink (love the name) now enables you to prototype circuits by 3D printing conductive ink on plastic or glass for about $2 a print. The printer goes one step further and robotically applies the discrete components as well, creating a complete 'circuit board'. The board can be designed using a web based portal eliminating the need for complex design tools as well. This is game changing for companies who need to create smart things at internet speeds. Using the web portal has also enabled the ability for a community to share designs. With the printer, the 'ink', the components, and the web based portal, you can have an entire electronics factory on your desk.
This is still on kickstarter, but it is an incredible indicator of what is to come. The replicator of Star Trek gets closer to reality every day.

Squink Lets You Print A Circuit Board For The Price Of A Cup Of Coffee

As an engineer, I love the many quotes and cartoons about the life of the engineer. This one always stood out to me. So, the next time you see an engineer, try to understand if they seem a bit overworked!!! After all, engineering never stops, it is Continuous.

There are more examples of engineering failures than anyone can list. One of the reasons I became an engineer is because my 3rd grade teach, Mrs. Robinson in Valley View Elementary School, told me I could never be an engineer since I didn't check my math work. She said bridges would fall. Well, she was wrong about my career, but she was right about the importance of checking one's work. And that validation starts with requirements.

These websites outline some of the most world's most famous engineering failures. They are sobering to see. While there are lots of things that can go wrong throughout the design and manufacturing process, it is widely accepted that the most important step to get right is Requirements. It is vital to ensure they are correct, complete, consistent, and clear. And, the best way to accomplish that is to use a tool that makes it easier for engineers to manage requirements the right way from the start. It is hard to believe that the requirements for anything we rely on might still be done using email or spreadsheets, but it is still happening in every industry.

Don't let your next project show up on one of these web sites! Use the right tool to enable the discipline of requirements management.

It is hard to miss the progress that the consumer Internet of Things world has gone through in the last year. You can't walk into a hardware or electronics store without bumping into smart locks, lights and thermostats. But, these are all still generally single function devices. To really make these things work for us, we have needed standardization, not just at the protocol level (wifi, zigbee, Z-Wave, etc) but at the service level. We need to be able to weave these devices together so they interact and support the way we live.

Google and Apple are both making big moves in this space. Apple had previous announced their Home Kit as an integration platform. But, this week, Google has made two big moves that we should all watch. First, they acquired Dropcam which will provide eyes and ears for the homeowner (and maybe for other services) into your home. Of course that sounds scary, but it is also powerful if properly managed. It enables a degree of remote presence in our home which would help while traveling or monitoring pets or loved ones who need help. Second, they announced a platform play where Google is turning the Nest thermostat into a hub for home automation. The "Works with Nest" certification would enable a new level of integration between all the IoT devices in your home. There are other hubs, but they are all from bit players without the influence to generate a true ecosystem.

When you consider Nest operating as a hub (using it's motion, temperature, smoke, and CO sensors) linked with Dropcam, smart locks, smart appliances, wearable Android devices (Android Wear is coming), smartphones, and even home entertainment (Chromecast), you start to see the home of the future unfolding before our eyes, What was science fiction in 2011 will be sitting under Christmas trees in 2014!

It is hard to miss the progress that the consumer Internet of Things world has gone through in the last year. You can't walk into a hardware or electronics store without bumping into smart locks, lights and thermostats. But, these are all still generally single function devices. To really make these things work for us, we have needed standardization, not just at the protocol level (wifi, zigbee, Z-Wave, etc) but at the service level. We need to be able to weave these devices together so they interact and support the way we live.

Google and Apple are both making big moves in this space. Apple had previous announced their Home Kit as an integration platform. But, this week, Google has made two big moves that we should all watch. First, they acquired Dropcam which will provide eyes and ears for the homeowner (and maybe for other services) into your home. Of course that sounds scary, but it is also powerful if properly managed. It enables a degree of remote presence in our home which would help while traveling or monitoring pets or loved ones who need help. Second, they announced a platform play where Google is turning the Nest thermostat into a hub for home automation. The "Works with Nest" certification would enable a new level of integration between all the IoT devices in your home. There are other hubs, but they are all from bit players without the influence to generate a true ecosystem.

When you consider Nest operating as a hub (using it's motion, temperature, smoke, and CO sensors) linked with Dropcam, smart locks, smart appliances, wearable Android devices (Android Wear is coming), smartphones, and even home entertainment (Chromecast), you start to see the home of the future unfolding before our eyes, What was science fiction in 2011 will be sitting under Christmas trees in 2014!

There's agile, there's glacial, and then there is this software project that has been 54 yeas in the making. It is known as Open Xanadu and is portrayed as the first hypertext software project. You can use it live here (http://xanadu.com/xanademos/MoeJusteOrigins.html). Xanadu's creator, Ted Nelson, coined the term hypertext in the early 1960s and has worked on this project ever since. It has gone through acquisitions and changes in name, but it is only now available for use.

Imagine how the world wide web might have differed if this came out as planned in 1992!

This article provides a really creative view of our near future through the signs we might see in day to day life. They paint a picture of a complex future filled with smart, connected things that change every aspect of how we live. This future will look as foreign to us as microwave ovens and cell phones would have looked to someone from 1960. I would imagine the term Future Shock (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_Shock) will be more relevant than ever as we live longer and therefore go through more changes over our lifetimes than any generation before us.

For many of us, the first thing we ever 'engineered' that actually did something was a paper airplane. We learned early on that changes in the fundamentals of the design (starting with the paper in portrait or landscape) had wildly different performance characteristics. We also learned that small enhancements could have a big impact on range or craziness of the flight. We iterated on our designs endlessly until we came up with designs that consistently worked for us.

Most of us stopped with that final design some time when we were 7 years old and have been recreating it ever since. But, some engineers can not stop trying to improve upon paper airplanes!

This engineer created a machine that can crank out paper airplanes as easily as a copier can copy a page. The effort that went into creating this clearly outweighs the value of the airplanes it creates, but it shows how far an engineer can go.

This innovation brings the paper airplane up to date by linking it to a mobile app and adding flight controls! The idea of a remote, smartphone controlled paper airplane is almost too cool to be true. And, the video they use to raise money and demonstrate it is wonderful. Just imagine how inspiring this will be for all of those young paper airplane engineers out there.

Robots have been with us for a long time. Surprisingly, there are references dating back to Greek engineers in 270 BC! But, recent advances in robotics are bringing them into our daily lives in all kinds of interesting ways. Domestic robots, for example, are already available in stores. They may not be up to the capabilities of Rosie the Robot (from the Jetsons), but they handle quite a few day to day tasks like cleaning floors, feeding pets, and monitoring our home security.

But, what is truly amazing is the rapid improvements in robotic capabilities. This example, from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology is Lausanne, shows a robot that uses sensors and vision along with machine learning to learn how to catch unusual objects in mid flight. It is mesmerizing to watch, and it is easy to imagine what will be possible in the future.

But, with all these capabilities, it does make me wonder about the ethics of robots who make decisions. The classic 3 Laws of Robotics, first drafted in 1942 by Isaac Asimov, state:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.[1]

I have to wonder if that is sufficient to protect us. A recent article in Popular Science asks the broader ethical question: "Should A Robot Sacrifice Your Life To Save Two?" This is relevant to all automated machines, including self-driving cars. The articles paints a grim picture when it considers if a self-driving car should sacrifice a driver to save more lives of other drivers or passengers. It is easy to imagine the debates that will ensue on topics like this when 'thinking' machines take over more and more of our daily tasks.

You can buy a cell phone for $0 these days with a new contract. But, for some people, that is too easy! The growth of open source platforms and open standards has led to incredible innovation by a new wave of 'makers' who are creating incredible things just to see what can be done. One important maker platform is the Raspberry Pi, a $35 computing platform which has all the necessary components to make a full Linux based computer. The Raspberry Pi is at the heart of a lot of Internet of Things innovation.

One interesting maker project took the Raspberry Pi, added a screen and a 3G chipset and created a home built, touchscreen cell phone. The total parts cost $158, but the geek bragging rights for this are priceless. It is hard to believe, but only a few years ago, creating something like this at home for so little money was unthinkable.

Printers have gone through very few major changes over the years. When I started working, typewriter based impact printers were state of the art. They were surprisingly fast and incredibly loud. They gave way to the seemingly magical dot matrix printers with their sweeping motions and multiple fonts. From there, we saw ink jet printers, laser printers and even color laser printers and 3D printers. They were connected by serial cables, then parallel cables, then USB, ethernet and even wifi. But, throughout that time, they almost always looked like a boring big box with only subtle changes in the shape and colors.

But, there is a new innovation that really changes the entire packaging of a printer! This printer is a small robot that 'drives' across a paper and prints as it goes. Students at the Jeruselum College of Technology created this wireless robot to print a standard A4 sheet of paper in under a minute. And, it looks like magic as it works! I encourage you to watch this animated GIF to see it in action. It makes the last 50 years of printers look like dinosaurs. It even comes in 2 colors and works with Android, iOS, Linux, OS X and Windows!

“The fun I had experienced in making things as a boy was magnified a hundredfold when I began making things as a man. There is in manufacturing a creative joy only poets are supposed to know.” — Walter P. Chrysler

"Born in Wamego, Kansas in 1875, Walter P. Chrysler developed a fascination with machines early on, landing his first job with a locomotive company as a 5¢ an hour machinist’s apprentice. Soon recognized for the quality of the things that he made, his reputation for quick, quality work rapidly moved him from sweeping floors to master mechanic.

Mr. Chrysler ultimately rose to plant manager in his successful career in the railroad industry before he switched gears and entered the automotive arena. He took the helm of three automobile manufacturers before establishing the company that bore his name in 1925, serving as president for ten years and then chairman until his death in 1940."
(From "About Walter P. Chrysler" http://www.chryslergroupllc.com/company/Heritage/Pages/About-Walter-Chrysler.aspx)

"Having fun" isn't usually the first phrase you think of when you think of either engineers or corporate CEOs. From one way of looking at it, though, engineers are perhaps the most creative people in the world. Oh, they're not the kind of creative people that write poems, paint paintings or sing songs, but what they create can change the world directly. They create products, systems--even whole industries from nothing. Walter P. Chrysler and others created the auto industry as others before him created the railroad industry through engineering. And he says he did it by having fun. So don't make light of fun.

This is a mockup of a potential future news web site for April 2017 which we are using to understand the evolution of how engineering is changing the world. It is hard to anticipate how things will actually unfold, but each of these fictional news stories is extrapolated from things that we see in the news today. The Internet of Things, robotics, increased software intelligence, and wearable devices will all have increasing influences on our every day lives.

These links are some of the basis for each of these articles. We can't underestimate how much all of this will change our lives.